India’s first free-of-cost multilingual Online Education Platform on AMR for Nurses launched

One of India’s leading multinational pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer India and Americares India Foundation announced the launch of OPEN-AMR an Online Platform for Education among Nurses on Antimicrobial Resistance. Americares India Foundation, a health-focused
relief and development organization, has joined as the execution partner.

OPEN-AMR is a web-based platform that can be accessed by any nurse anywhere in India in sevendifferent languages: English, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Marathi. Courses on the platform are available free of cost to the nurses and hospitals. The courses will focus on Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practices and Antimicrobial Stewardship Practices(AMSP) under antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is one of the world’s top 10 global public health threats, according to the World Health Organization 1 . Additional courses will be included in subsequent years.

The platform was unveiled at India’s first “Antimicrobial Resistance Summit 2022”by SMT KK Shailaja Teacher, Hon’ble Former Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of Kerala and Dr. Atul Goel, Director General of Health Services, Government of India. The Summit was organized by IHW Council as the knowledge and awareness partner. Reputed stakeholders from across the government, policymakers, healthcare experts, reputed medical and research institutions and scientists came together to discuss two of the most critical areas related to AMR at the summit:

Designing the audio-visual courses and the full curriculum was a multi-staged process and involved several experts and stakeholders from Pfizer, Americares India Foundation, and
Medvarsity which is the technical partner for this program. The classes are available for all nurses, at different designations and levels of education and professional experience, from students to administrators and nurse supervisors.

After the initial registration, nurses may select the course that optimally meets their professional requirements and receive a certificate on completion of each of the courses.
Commenting on the program, Shripad Desai, MD and Country Director, Americares India Foundationsaid, “We are pleased to partner with Pfizer and Medvarsity to launch OPEN-AMRin regional languages for nurses across India. I am confident that if nurses receive the right kind of training, they can become powerful advocates and enforcers of antimicrobial stewardship practices to help slow down the spread of AMR. It is estimated that AMR will cause 2 million deaths in India by 2050 2 . We need to take quick, concrete action today if we want to cause any reduction in that burden.”

The OPEN-AMR program further strengthens Pfizer’s Project Parivartan which is focused on addressing the current Infection Prevention and Control(IPC) challenges in healthcare facilities. Project Parivartan is also developing a model for Institutional Capacity Building to deliver facility-based IPC and antimicrobial stewardship in 11 small and mid-size hospitals across India.

OPEN has already been launched in 9 of the 11 hospitals and has received excellent feedback from on-ground healthcare professionals so far.

Commenting on the value of OPEN-AMR, Dr. Devikumar Kelkar, Director, Narayani Hospital,
Nashiksaid, “On this platform, our nurses have been able to access over 11 hours of high-quality training on AMR and grow in their understanding of how best to tackle this public health challenge at the hospital. We are grateful to Pfizer, Americares India Foundation and Medvarsity for putting together this much-needed curriculum and for making it so freely accessible to all.”

The 6 courses currently being offered on OPEN are:

1. Introduction to Infection Prevention & Control and Antimicrobial Stewardship
2. Common Infection Prevention and Control Practices
3. Basics of Antimicrobial Stewardship and Core Components
4. Advanced Infection Prevention and Control Practices
5. Healthcare-Associated Infections And their Control practices
6. Antimicrobial Stewardship Principles and Action Planning

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